The latest reports are posted at the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, and they confirm: Question 2 on MCAS is a contest between capital and labor. The “parents” frame is sought by the No side and though it is false it has been swallowed whole by numerous media outlets. They will be awarded the Larsen A. Whipsnade “Never give a sucker an even break” media awards.
Notice I said that this “is a contest between capital and labor” and not between the Massachusetts business community and the Massachusetts Teachers Association. I wrote about that in Framing the MCAS Opposition: “Business Community” or “Parents”? where I noted that a great bulk of donations to the Protect Our Kids Future: No on 2 ballot committee comes from the financial services sector: banks, hedge funds, etc. These are largely folks who hire Harvard Business School alumni, not grads of Chicopee High School.
The October 21 filings indicate financial support still clustered in financial services but showing more support for the “business community” thesis too. Billionaire Trump donor, New Balance chairman, and Mayor Wu antagonist Jim Davis gave $250,000 in the last reporting period. Then you get two $50,000 kick-ins from the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, Inc. (leaders include heavyweights like Robert Kraft, Abigail Johnson, John Fish, Nirav Shah, etc.). Paul Edgerley (retired from Bain) gave $100,000. He has been an anti-labor dark money donor. State Street Corporation gave $100,000.
Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, supported by the Walton Family Foundation and the Barr Foundation, gave another $35,500, bringing its total to $60,500. Pioneer Institute is a right-wing advocacy operation funded by David Koch and the extremist Bradley Foundation; it gave $25,000. Eleanor Laurens also gave $25,000 and is listed as “not employed”. She co-founded Simplisafe and served as CFO of Boston Public Schools.
Before the latest filing period the Boston Globe’s Jon Chesto did a very good piece drawing out the “business community” support of the No on 2 side, highlighting the bulk of support from the financial sector. Just the other day the Globe again avoided the parent trap as education reporter Christoper Huffaker reported on the MCAS question as a contest between business and teachers unions. I’m often critical of the Globe but on Question 2 it has (mostly) framed the contest accurately by casting the contest as between business and unions, and not as between unions and parents.
That brings us to the rest of the Massachusetts media and my post Protect Our Kids Future Flips off Massachusetts Political Press: How Will They Respond? That post focused on the “parents” frame and noted that it is almost entirely based upon the media accepting the false premise that one “parent”, Keri Rodrigues, represents parents and not the corporate privateers that pay her so handsomely. Or as Larsen A. Whipsnade (W.C. Fields) said in “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man” (1939): “never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.” Rodrigues has been climbing the Walton family corporate education reform ladder for a decade in plain sight. It is not Rodrigues’ job to give a sucker an even break or to smarten up a chump.
So, in order to recognize the lack of work from the journalists who have gullibly accepted the “parent” frame in their work we present the Larsen A. Whipsnade “Never give a sucker an even break” media awards:
Jim Braude and Margery Egan, Boston Public Radio, GBH
Ed Harding, On the Record, WCVB
Sam Drysdale, Alison Kuznitz and Colin A. Young, NBC 10 Boston
, WBZ News (does not rely on Rodrigues)
Money never sleeps. Follow the money.
“You can’t cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump.” W.C. Fields as Larsen A. Whipsnade, “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man” (1939)
“If we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you just one bit of fatherly advice: Never give a sucker an even break!” W.C. Fields as Eustace McGargle, Poppy (1936)
Full disclosure: as a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy. My book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, is in print.]
I think Jim and Margery deserve some sort of special recognition for the disdain with which they so often regard public schools. One can hear them looking down their noses as one drives, necessitating pulling over so as to avoid an increase in one’s insurance.
Something like the Larsen A. Whipsnade Award Squared.